Kazakhstan

On November 1, the fourth session of the Kazakhstani-Kyrgyzstani Intergovernmental Council met in Bishkek. The meeting sought to realize the agenda articulated by Kazakhstani Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov, who noted “the mutual desire of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to address urgent issues on water and the energy sector, gas, transport, agriculture, environmental problems” as well as promote free trade (inform.kz, November 1). READ MORE

During his visit to Brussels the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Erlan Idrissov has held a separate bilateral talks with Linus Linkevičius, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Lithuania holding the Presidency of the EU, and the European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs. READ MORE

Kazakhstan is the most active and reliable partner of NATO in Central Asia, and the North Atlantic Alliance hopes to maintain the rates of cooperation with the Republic of Kazakhstan in the sphere of further stabilization in Afghanistan, fighting terrorism, drugs trafficking, as well as assurance of international security and stability, reports Kazinform. READ MORE

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara has visited Kazakhstan and Prime Minister Mykola Azarov went to Belarus earlier this month to assure Russia’s Customs Union partners that Ukraine’s plans to sign an association and free trade agreement with the European Union in November will do them no harm. Judging by statements made during and after the visits, attitudes to Ukraine’s plans in Astana and Minsk are more pragmatic than in Moscow, which keeps threatening Kyiv with sanctions for preferring the EU to its own regional bloc (see EDM, October 10). READ MORE

The worst, the better – this is what, probably, can be said when analyzing the hysteria which has been raised for the last several weeks in European, and especially, American newspapers regarding hardening of the Russian line towards the states willing to join the European Union. The more clearly Moscow imagines russophobic attitudes of a significant segment of Western elites, the more rational, cold and efficient shall be Russian foreign policy within post-Soviet space. READ MORE

Kairat Kelimbetov, a deputy prime minister who led the nationalization of failing Kazakh lenders in 2009 as the chief of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, will replace Grigori Marchenko as central bank governor. READ MORE

Kazakhstan, which has linked KZT to a multi-currency basket since September, where the RUR has the share of 10%, the next year wants to introduce a floating corridor and to define the scope of interventions, by which the limits of this corridor shall shift. READ MORE